In the 1920s and 1930s Einar Gjerstad, director of the Swedish
Cyprus Expedition, undertook a pioneering study of the decorated pottery
of Iron Age Cyprus. Relying predominately on whole vessels from the hundreds
of tombs which the Expedition uncovered all across the island, Gjerstad
established an initial typology and chronology. Over the years Gjerstad's
original chronology has been modified and refined, but his typology still provides
the basic framework for the description and analysis of pottery of Iron
Age Cyprus. Recent research has also confirmed Gjerstad's early intuition
about regional variation in Iron Age ceramics.